176 MANUAL OF BACTERIOLOGY. 



Wool-sorter's disease is a name sometimes applied to anthrax 

 in man when acquired by inhaling the dust from wool which 

 contains the anthrax bacilli or spores. 



The atmosphere in the vicinity of cases of the exanthema- 

 tous fevers must necessarily at times contain the germs of these 

 diseases. 



Water is commonly regarded as the usual medium for 

 the transmission of the infection in typhoid fever, and Asiatic 

 cholera, and probably all forms of dysentery besides various 

 nondescript disturbances of the alimentary tract. 



Milk from tuberculous cows may carry the bacilli of tubercu- 

 losis as already stated; this is, of course, of the utmost im- 

 portance in the case of young infants. Typhoid fever and 

 cholera, and probably dysentery, scarlet fever and diphtheria 

 would all appear to be diseases which might be conveyed 

 through the medium of milk and in some cases of these diseases 

 this mode of infection has been quite clearly demonstrated. 

 Not only milk but all other forms of uncooked food may serve 

 as carriers of infection to the intestines. 



The Soil is of importance as a mode of conveyance of in- 

 fection because of the frequent presence in it of the bacteria of 

 tetanus and of malignant edema. Bacillus aerogenes capsulatus 

 may occur in the soil, and may infect dirty wounds. The 

 spores of anthrax bacilli are present in the soil of certain locali- 

 ties, and may produce anthrax in cattle. 



Flies.* — Under suitable- conditions, flies play an important 

 part in transporting the bacteria of cholera and typhoid fever 

 from the excreta of these diseases to food substances, which they 

 may contaminate. Flies which have access to tuberculous 

 sputum may deposit tubercle bacilli on food.f BuchananJ 

 has shown that the common house-fly and the blue-bottle fly 



*Nuttall. Role of Insects, etc., in Disease. John Hopkins Hospital Reports, 

 Vol. VIII. 1900. 



tLord. Boston Medical and Surgical Journal. Dec. 15, 1904. 

 ^Circular 71, U. S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Entomology. 



